Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (State and Metro Area)

Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment (Monthly) News Release

Technical information:
Employment: (202) 691-6559 USDL 08-0585
http://www.bls.gov/sae/
Unemployment: (202) 691-6392
http://www.bls.gov/lau/ For release: 10:00 A.M. (EDT)
Media contact: (202) 691-5902 Tuesday, April 29, 2008
METROPOLITAN AREA EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT: MARCH 2008
Unemployment rates were higher in March than a year earlier in
309 of the 369 metropolitan areas, lower in 40 areas, and unchanged
in 20 areas, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department
of Labor reported today. Fourteen areas, 12 of which are located in
California, recorded jobless rates of at least 10.0 percent, while
9 areas registered rates below 3.0 percent. The national unemploy-
ment rate in March was 5.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted, up from
4.5 percent a year earlier.
Metropolitan Area Unemployment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)
In March, 45 metropolitan areas reported unemployment rates of at
least 7.0 percent, up from 26 areas a year earlier, while 69 areas
recorded rates below 4.0 percent, down from 128 areas in March 2007.
Two agricultural areas in California again registered the highest
rates in March: El Centro, 16.4 percent, and Merced, 13.7 percent.
Iowa City, Iowa, and Midland, Texas, posted the lowest jobless rates,
2.6 percent each. Overall, 193 areas recorded unemployment rates below
the U.S. figure of 5.2 percent, 163 areas had higher rates, and 13 areas
had the same rate. (See table 1.)
Two Florida areas, Cape Coral-Fort Myers and Punta Gorda, registered
the largest unemployment rate increases from a year earlier (+3.0 and
+2.9 percentage points, respectively). Twenty-one additional areas re-
corded rate increases of 2.0 percentage points or more, and another
96 areas had increases of 1.0 to 1.9 points. Two Oklahoma areas, Lawton
and Oklahoma City, reported the only jobless rate decreases of 1.0 per-
centage point or more in March (-1.2 and -1.1 points, respectively).
Of the 49 metropolitan areas with a Census 2000 population of 1 mil-
lion or more, Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Mich., continued to record the high-
est unemployment rate, 8.1 percent in March. The areas posting the next
highest rates were Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., 7.1 percent,
and Providence-Fall River-Warwick, R.I.-Mass., 6.9 percent. Oklahoman City,
Okla., reported the lowest jobless rate among the large areas, 3.3 percent.
Seven additional large areas had rates below 4.0 percent. Forty-four large
areas recorded higher unemployment rates than in March 2007, three posted
lower rates, and two had no change. Among the large areas, Riverside-San
Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., had the largest over-the-year jobless rate in-
crease (+1.9 percentage points), followed by Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater,
Fla. (+1.5 points). Nineteen additional large areas reported rate increases
of 1.0 percentage point or more. Oklahoma City, Okla., registered the larg-
est unemployment rate decrease from a year earlier (-1.1 percentage points).
No other large area had a rate decrease greater than 0.2 percentage point.
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Metropolitan Division Unemployment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)
Eleven of the most populous metropolitan areas are composed of 34 metro-
politan divisions, which are essentially separately identifiable employment
centers. In March, the division with the highest unemployment rate again was
Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich., 9.1 percent. Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills,
Mich., and Lawrence-Methuen-Salem, Mass.-N.H., recorded the next highest rates,
7.5 and 7.3 percent, respectively. Bethesda-Frederick-Gaithersburg, Md., con-
tinued to report the lowest jobless rate among the divisions, 2.7 percent.
Five additional divisions registered rates below 4.0 percent. (See table 2.)
In March, 27 of the 34 metropolitan divisions recorded over-the-year unem-
ployment rate increases, 2 had rate decreases, and 5 had rates unchanged from
a year earlier. The division with the largest jobless rate increase was West
Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach, Fla. (+1.5 percentage points). Six addi-
tional divisions reported rate increases of 1.0 percentage point or more. No
division registered a jobless rate decline from March 2007 greater than 0.2
percentage point.
In 7 of the 11 metropolitan areas that contain divisions, the ranges between
the highest and lowest division jobless rates were 1.0 percentage point or more
in March. The metropolitan area that had the largest rate difference among its
divisions, 3.5 percentage points, was Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Mass.-N.H.
(Lawrence-Methuen-Salem, Mass.-N.H., 7.3 percent, compared with Framingham,
Mass., 3.8 percent).
Metropolitan Area Nonfarm Employment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)
Among the 310 metropolitan areas for which nonfarm payroll data were avail-
able in March, 221 metropolitan areas recorded over-the-year increases in non-
farm payroll employment, 82 reported decreases, and 7 had no change. The larg-
est over-the-year employment increase was posted in Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown,
Texas (+80,100), followed by New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y.-
N.J.-Pa. (+65,500), Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas (+58,200), and Seattle-
Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash. (+35,700). The largest over-the-year percentage increases
in employment were reported in Pascagoula, Miss. (+13.9 percent), Coeur d'Alene,
Idaho (+5.7 percent), Kennewick-Pasco-Richland, Wash., and Odessa, Texas (+5.2 per-
cent each), and Grand Junction, Colo. (+4.4 percent). (See table 3.)
The largest over-the-year decrease in employment occurred in Detroit-Warren-
Livonia, Mich. (-45,300), followed by Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Calif.
(-35,300), Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif. (-21,700), Miami-Fort
Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, Fla. (-20,800), Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla.
(-17,300), Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla. (-13,900), and Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice,
Fla. (-13,200). The largest over-the-year percentage decrease in employment was
recorded in Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla. (-5.8 percent), followed by Flint, Mich.,
and Naples-Marco Island, Fla. (-5.3 percent each), Blacksburg-Christiansburg-
Radford, Va. (-4.8 percent), Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice, Fla. (-4.3 percent), and
Saginaw-Saginaw Township North, Mich. (-3.5 percent).
Over the year, nonfarm employment increased in 27 of the 38 metropolitan areas
with annual average employment levels above 750,000 in 2007. The largest over-
the-year percentage increases in employment in these large metropolitan areas were
reported in Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas (+3.2 percent), Austin-Round Rock,
Texas (+2.9 percent), San Antonio, Texas (+2.3 percent), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue,
Wash. (+2.1 percent), and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas (+2.0 percent). Among
the large areas, the largest over-the-year percentage decreases were reported in
Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Mich. (-2.3 percent), Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario,
Calif. (-1.7 percent), Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla. (-1.3 percent), Miami-
Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, Fla. (-0.8 percent), and Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor,
Ohio, and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Calif. (-0.6 percent each).
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Metropolitan Division Nonfarm Employment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)
Nonfarm payroll employment data were available in March 2008 for 32 metropoli-
tan divisions, which are essentially separately identifiable employment centers
within a metropolitan area. Twenty of the 32 metropolitan divisions reported
over-the-year increases in employment, 11 reported losses, and 1 had no change.
The largest over-the-year increases in nonfarm employment for the metropolitan
divisions occurred in New York-White Plains-Wayne, N.Y.-N.J. (+52,200), Dallas-
Plano-Irving, Texas (+40,800), Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Wash. (+29,400), Boston-
Cambridge-Quincy, Mass.-N.H. (+24,200), Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-
Md.-W.Va.(+23,900), and San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, Calif. (+20,200).
The largest over-the-year declines in nonfarm employment were recorded in Detroit-
Livonia-Dearborn, Mich. (-28,000), Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, Calif. (-21,700),
Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Mich. (-17,300), Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale,
Calif. (-13,600), and Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, Fla. (-9,800).
(See table 4.)
The largest over-the-year percentage increases in employment among the metro-
politan divisions were reported in Tacoma, Wash. (+2.3 percent); San Francisco-
San Mateo-Redwood City, Calif. (+2.1 percent); and Dallas-Plano-Irving, Texas;
Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas; and Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Wash. (+2.0 percent
each). The largest over-the-year percentage declines in employment among metro-
politan divisions were seen in Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich. (-3.6 percent),
Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Mich. (-1.5 percent), Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine,
Calif. (-1.4 percent), West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach, Fla. (-1.3 per-
cent), and Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, Fla. (-1.2 percent).
______________________________
The Regional and State Employment and Unemployment release for April is sche-
duled to be issued on Friday, May 16. The Metropolitan Area Employment and Unem-
ployment release for April is scheduled to be issued on Wednesday, May 28.
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| |
| Hurricane Katrina |
| |
| For March, BLS and its state partners continued to make |
|modifications to the usual estimation procedures for the LAUS |
|program to reflect the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the labor |
|force statistics in affected areas. These modifications included: |
|(1) modifying the state population controls to account for dis- |
|placement due to Katrina; (2) developing labor force estimates for |
|the New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner metropolitan area using an alter- |
|native to the model-based method; and (3) not publishing labor |
|force estimates for the months immediately following the hurricane |
|for the parishes within the New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner metropoli- |
|tan area or cities within those parishes, where the quality of in- |
|put data was severely compromised by the hurricane. |
| |
| For more information on LAUS procedures and estimates for |
|March 2008, see Hurricane Information: Katrina and Rita on the |
|BLS Web site at http://www.bls.gov/Katrina/home.htm or call |
|(202) 691-6392. |
| |
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Technical Note
This release presents labor force and unemployment data from the
Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program (tables 1 and 2)
for 377 metropolitan statistical areas and metropolitan New England
City and Town Areas (NECTAs), including those in Puerto Rico. Esti-
mates for over 30 metropolitan and NECTA divisions also are presented.
Nonfarm payroll employment estimates from the Current Employment Statis-
tics (CES) program (tables 3 and 4) are provided for most of the same
areas. State estimates were previously published in the news release,
Regional and State Employment and Unemployment, and are republished in
this release for ease of reference. The LAUS and CES programs are both
federal-state cooperative endeavors.
Labor force and unemployment--from the LAUS program
Definitions. The labor force and unemployment data are based on the
same concepts and definitions as those used for the official national
estimates obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a sample
survey of households that is conducted for the Bureau of Labor Statis-
tics (BLS) by the U.S. Census Bureau. The labor force includes both the
employed and the unemployed. Employed persons are those who did any work
at all for pay or profit in the survey reference week (the week including
the 12th of the month) or worked 15 hours or more without pay in a family
business or farm, plus those not working who had a job from which they
were temporarily absent, whether or not paid, for such reasons as labor-
management dispute, illness, or vacation. Unemployed persons are those
who did not work at all (in the reference week), had actively looked for
a job (sometime in the 4-week period ending with the survey reference
week), and were currently available for work; persons on layoff expecting
recall need not be looking for work to be counted as unemployed.
Method of estimation. Effective January 2005, estimates for all census
divisions, states, the District of Columbia, the Los Angeles-Long Beach-
Glendale metropolitan division, and New York City were produced using up-
dated time-series models with real-time benchmarking. Model-based estima-
tion was extended to the following areas and the respective balances-of-
state: Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL Metropolitan Division; Cleveland-
Elyria-Mentor, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area; Detroit-Warren-Livonia,
MI Metropolitan Statistical Area; Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, FL Metropol-
itan Division; New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA Metropolitan Statistical
Area; and Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA Metropolitan Division. This will
improve the statistical basis of the estimation for these areas and pro-
vide important tools for analysis, such as measures of error and season-
ally adjusted series. For all other substate areas, estimates are pre-
pared through indirect estimation procedures. Employment estimates, which
are based largely on "place of work" estimates from the CES program, are
adjusted to refer to place of residence as used in the CPS. Unemployment
estimates are aggregates of persons previously employed in industries
covered by state unemployment (UI) laws and entrants to the labor force
data from the CPS. The substate estimates of employment and unemployment,
which geographically exhaust the entire state, are adjusted proportionally
to ensure that they add to the independently estimated state or balance-
of-state totals. A detailed description of the estimation procedures is
available from BLS upon request.
Annual revisions. Labor force and unemployment data shown for the prior
year reflect adjustments made at the end of each year, usually implemented
with January estimates. The adjusted estimates reflect updated population
data from the U.S. Census Bureau, any revisions in the other data sources,
and model reestimation at the state and selected area level. All substate
area estimates are adjusted to add to the revised model-based estimates.
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Employment--from the CES program
Definitions. Employment data refer to persons on establishment payrolls
who receive pay for any part of the pay period that includes the 12th of the
month. Persons are counted at their place of work rather than at their place
of residence; those appearing on more than one payroll are counted on each
payroll. Industries are classified on the basis of their principal activity
in accordance with the 2007 version of the North American Industry Classifi-
cation System.
Method of estimation. The employment data are estimated using a "link
relative" technique in which a ratio (link relative) of current-month em-
ployment to that of the previous month is computed from a sample of estab-
lishments reporting for both months. The estimates of employment for the
current month are obtained by multiplying the estimates for the previous
month by these ratios. Small-domain models are used as the official esti-
mators for the approximately 39 percent of CES published series which have
insufficient sample for direct sample-based estimates.
Annual revisions. Employment estimates are adjusted annually to a com-
plete count of jobs, called benchmarks, derived principally from tax reports
that are submitted by employers who are covered under state UI laws. The
benchmark information is used to adjust the monthly estimates between the
new benchmark and the preceding one and also to establish the level of em-
ployment for the new benchmark month. Thus, the benchmarking process estab-
lishes the level of employment, and the sample is used to measure the month-
to-month changes in the level for the subsequent months.
Reliability of the estimates
The estimates presented in this release are based on sample survey and
administrative data and thus are subject to sampling and other types of
errors. Sampling error is a measure of sampling variability--that is, vari-
ation that occurs by chance because a sample rather than the entire popula-
tion is surveyed. Survey data also are subject to nonsampling errors, such
as those which can be introduced into the data collection and processing
operations. Estimates not directly derived from sample surveys are subject
to additional errors resulting from the special estimation processes used.
The sums of individual items may not always equal the totals shown in the
same tables because of rounding. With respect to the LAUS program, unem-
ployment rates are computed from unrounded data rather than from data
that may be displayed in the tables; differences, however, are generally
insignificant.
Labor force and unemployment estimates. Model-based error measures, in-
cluding for over-the-month change, are available for states on the BLS Web
site at http://www.bls.gov/lau/lastderr.htm. Measures of nonsampling error
are not available, but additional information on the subject is provided in
Employment and Earnings Online at http://www.bls.gov/opub/ee/home.htm.
Employment estimates. Measures of sampling error for state CES data at
the supersector level and for metropolitan area CES data at the total nonfarm
level are available on the BLS Web site at http://www.bls.gov/sae/790stderr.
htm. Information on recent benchmark revisions for states is available at
http://www.bls.gov/sae/.
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Area definitions
The substate area data published in this release reflect the standards
and definitions established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget on
November 20, 2007. A detailed list of the geographic definitions is avail-
able on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/lau/lausmsa.htm.
Additional information
More complete information on the technical procedures used to develop
these estimates and additional data appear in Employment and Earnings
Online.
Estimates of unadjusted and seasonally adjusted labor force and unemploy-
ment data for states, census regions and divisions, and eight areas are avail-
able in the news release, Regional and State Employment and Unemployment. Es-
timates of labor force and unemployment for all states, metropolitan areas,
labor market areas, counties, cities with a population of 25,000 or more, and
other areas used in the administration of various federal economic assistance
programs are available on the BLS Web site at http://www.bls.gov/lau/. Employ-
ment data from the CES program are available at http://www.bls.gov/sae/.
Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired in-
dividuals upon request. Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; TDD message referral
phone: 1-800-877-8339.